First he conquered the press. Then it rebelled

"Never again". Those were the words which marked the birth of the culture of spin that became the hallmark of New Labour. It happened after Labour blamed the party's defeat at the 1992 general election on the character assassination of Neil Kinnock by much of the press.

Even before he became leader in 1994, Tony Blair was courting the party's traditional enemies in Rupert Murdoch's empire and at the Daily Mail. "It is better to ride the tiger's back than let it rip your throat out," he explained.

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Under his leadership, Labour's media operation was transformed. Round-the-clock media monitoring, rapid rebuttal, pre-emptive strikes against the party's opponents and ruthless advance spinning of Labour's own announcements were imported from the US Democrats. Journalists were handled with a combination of flattery and bullying, given stories if they played ball and frozen out if they did not.

It worked brilliantly in opposition and, for a while, it worked well in government. But as Mr Blair's long honeymoon came to an end, the limitations of spin were becoming apparent. The media was tiring of double or triple counting money pumped into public services and the constant re-announcements of the same policies. Headlines became a substitute for policy.

By 2001, Blair aides felt that spin was becoming counter-productive. Journalists were sounded out about whether the Government and media could forge a more grown-up relationship. But the two sides were already on a collision course. Blair's inner circle could not give up their addiction to trying to control the media. They believed that if they stopped riding, they would be eaten alive by the tiger.

The collision came as they tried to spin a war. Two dossiers were published as Mr Blair sought to win public support for his private pledge to George Bush to back a US invasion of Iraq. The first drew selectively on intelligence reports about Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destructionand claimed he was planning to be able to deploy them within 45 minutes. The second, or "dodgy" dossier, relied on huge chunks of a student's thesis culled from the internet.

Alastair Campbell, the communications director, declared war on the BBC when it doubted the veracity of the claims. The hunt for the mole closed in on David Kelly, a government weapons expert, who committed suicide. Although No 10 won its battle at the Hutton inquiry into Dr Kelly's death, it was a pyrrhic victory. BBC heads rolled but the evidence revealed during the inquiry damaged the Government. Mr Blair recognised that Mr Campbell had to go.

There were genuine attempts by a new media regime to give up spin but the failure to find WMD haunted the Prime Minister, causing a lack of trust which he could never rebuild. The tactic which had worked so well for Mr Blair in opposition ultimately became a permanent stain on, and epitaph for, his Government.